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Friday, January 24, 2014

I have introduced a new continuing education class at Camosun College in Victoria starting Mar 5, with the same name as the title of this BLOG posting......"Faces, Fashion & Figures".

The subject will be just what that says, with an emphasis on creative approaches to lighting with the student participant's own off-camera flash.
I've done several presentations on using external flash because my experience tells me that most up-and-coming photographers, and advanced amateurs, are more intimidated by their flash than their cameras. And my experience and history with clients is as a creative and innovative lighting photographer, so I'm interested in assisting others to get a good grasp of using their own lighting tools.

The subject is the draw to keep the technical challenges interesting and applicable outside the classroom. We'll work with models for beauty shots, portraits, some fashion-type approaches and then use the figure to create some artsy-fartsy studies of light and form.

I taught a figure lighting course at Camosun several years ago, and it is a part of my Advertising course I teach at the Western Academy of Photography www.westernacademyofphotography.com . It can be very challenging, but is a dramatic and rewarding path to understanding good, creative lighting.

I use Canon cameras and flash and find the 580EX flash to be an incredible tool for location shooting. Canon equipment is as sophisticated a system as there is available on the market. The flash units 'speak' to the cameras to synch up for efficient and accurate exposures. The students will learn to trust their tools and develop instincts to achieve predictable results with an interesting and appealing subject.

I require that the students have a 'reasonable' understanding of their cameras, own a portable flash, and have taken Mitch Stringer's "Photography Level 1 - Introduction", or equivalent. This class will need a better than just basic understanding of photography and the tools, and will be challenging enough to keep everyone interested and learning, but shouldn't be overwhelming.
If you're interested check out the course listing at http://www.camosun.ca/ce/. Go to 'Arts & Culture', click on 'Photography' and you'll find it.

The class runs Wednesday evenings from March 5 to April 23, from 6:30 to 9;00 - that's 8 sessions.
Come on out. Bing your camera and flash and have some creative fun.